The Annual Birthday Fundraiser Campaign strives to support a different cause close to Frankie's heart every year. We find specific ways to sustainably improve quality of life. Then we hand deliver the items needed to get the job done. For our 5th year of fundraising we surpassed our fundraising goal to support a refugee family from crisis-stricken Venezuela. Take a look at the “Updates” tab to see where we’re at in the process.

how we got started

In 2012 my work with the international, student-run organization AIESEC brought me to the small village of La Mariposa, Perú. My experience working with the children of this village—which has no running water or electricity—helped solidify my purpose in life. I became convinced that it is my purpose to help people, in any way that I can. After returning home to California, I founded Project Mariposa, a start-up charity to sponsor the needs of the school children of La Mariposa, Perú. Over the course of two years, my team and I were able to provide hundreds of school supplies, as well as seven bikes for graduating students to commute to the far-off high school.

In 2015, I continued to pursue my purpose by becoming the Support Coordinator for the Families in Transition Program of Lucia Mar Unified School District in California. In other words, I managed the cases of 1,335 homeless students. I met families of all kinds: those who had lost their home to a fire and now lived in a hotel, those who lived one day at a time out of their car, those who camped on the beach as they sought permanent housing, teenagers who couch-surfed without parents to care for them, and so on. I learned the many causes of homelessness, but more importantly, I learned how it impacted the children. What affected me the most was a child's inability to change a situation that they did not create.

While our office was fairly well equipped to serve our students, there just wasn't enough to help all 1,335 of them. It was my birthday of my first year on the job when I decided to take matters into my own hands. I asked my family and friends to honor my birthday by donating school supplies and toiletries to our office. The response was remarkable, and from it, a long-standing tradition was born. Every year since, I have chosen a cause close to my heart, and have asked my very generous donors to support it. I hope that this year, you will consider joining our forces of unstoppable good!